


Whatever Fate Decides (You'll Be By My Side)

by Kailene



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Comfort, Gen, Hurt, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016), Major Character Injury, Protective Jack Dalton (MacGyver 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23368300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kailene/pseuds/Kailene
Summary: His last thought before the darkness takes him away is if either of them will still be alive when-if-that rescue comes.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 47





	Whatever Fate Decides (You'll Be By My Side)

**Author's Note:**

> This actually started out as a drabble I wrote years ago for the Supernatural fandom and did nothing with and has been sitting in my computer ever since. I haven't been able to make any headway on any of my WIPs and I just happened to come across this recently. So I decided to switch out Sam and Dean for Mac and Jack, added a couple of hundred more words, and had myself a finished one-shot. 
> 
> As always, big thanks to RiatheMai for the beta.
> 
> A final note; After reading through the finished version of this story and how Mac and Jack are written, I realized that their relationship can be interpreted as being MacDalton or as the deep bond and brotherhood they shared as partners and best friends. I'm leaving it up to the reader to decide for themselves.

“You sonovabitch!”

Jack bucks his body, twisting his back in an attempt to shake the rebel soldier loose. He bends his arm behind himself, clawing at air before his fingers find long strands of hair. He curls his hand into a fist, latches on, and _yanks_. 

The scream is torn from Jack’s lips before he can stop it as the Dictator’s lead general sinks the serrated combat knife deep into his back, slashing past flesh into the muscle below. 

The roar of his name makes it past the sharp cacophony of his cry, past the pounding of his heart as it slams against his ribcage and the sudden rush of blood and pressure that fills his ears, as white-hot pain lights up every nerve ending in his body. 

Until his dying breath he will recognize that voice. 

_Mac_. 

And suddenly presence on his back is gone amidst the unmistakable dull smack of a hard object hitting flesh, the howl of a piercing scream, and then…silence. 

Jack stays on his hands and knees. His mouth is pinched tight against the pain, breath sawing in and out of his nose. Every shuddering inhalation drags the blade still lodged in his back a bit further into his flesh. Every quivering exhalation pulls it slowly back out. 

Jack turns his head just enough to get a side-eyed look at his partner, deep lines furrowed into his brow as he squints his eyes in the near dark of the cave to make him out better.

Or perhaps it’s just the pain making everything so hard to see. 

As slow as he moves, as minute as the movement is, it still leaves Jack swallowing convulsively against the nausea that churns in his stomach, and he spits the saliva that pools in his mouth into the dirt below him. 

“Batter up,” Mac snarks out with a groan, lifting his arm to show him… something. “Stalactite,” he answers Jack’s unasked question. “Hangs from caves…calcium salts—” 

“Don’t care, Mac.” Jack growls, anger a knee jerk reaction to cover up the terrified fear surging through him for his partner… His brother. “Didn’t I tell you to say put?”

“Didn’t,” Mac defends, and in even in Jack’s less than stellar state he doesn’t miss the dropped letters and slurred words. “Said t’not bleed out.” 

“Friggin’ smartass,” Jack mumbles with fondness. “ And swingin’ in the dark? You could’ve taken my damn head off, you know.” 

“Nah, easy t’tell… Bad guy’s bigger’n you. ‘Sides… your hair is pointier.” 

Mac actually laughs, full out giggles. Jack grits his teeth, low growl in his throat as he hauls himself into a crouch. “Hilarious, Mac.” 

“Hmm,” Mac hums, with what Jack guesses is supposed to be a shrug but is more like a full body shudder, “I thought so. Hey…ah, Jack…? Don’t freak out, okay?” 

Jack looks up sharply as Mac’s words are cut off by a deep, wet, hacking cough. 

“Mac?”

Jack curses the darkness that surrounds them, preventing him from properly seeing his best friend’s face, from seeing those deep, blue expressive eyes that always give everything away.

But even with the blackness and shadows obscuring the space between them, he and Mac have what seems like a lifetime together, of whole sentences and entire paragraphs uttered and understood with a just single look or a shared glance. 

“Mac…?”

Jack digs deep into all the training that’s he ever had and pushes the pain that’s searing through body away and forces himself fully to his feet, staggering against the forces that want to pull him back down to the earth, eyes locked across the space between them, locked on the outline of Mac the entire time. 

He squeezes his eyes shut, opens them a half second later to the dread realization that it’s not himself that is moving, it’s not the lightness in his head, nor the loss of blood he can feel warm and sticky coating too much of his skin making him waver and wobble and the world to move. 

It's his partner…swaying dangerously from side to side. 

“S’rry.”

And like a puppet with its strings cut, Mac’s legs buckle and his body falls boneless to the floor. 

“ _MAC!_ ”

Jack surges forward, catching Mac’s upper body mere inches before his head smashes into the hard, unforgiving ground. The momentum sends them tumbling sideways. His grip on Mac tightens as Jack’s body automatically twists to protect the precious cargo that is in his arms, the action slamming him back first into the rock wall. 

And Jack… _SCREAMS_.

Fiery pain explodes throughout his entire body as the knife, still in his back, is buried up to the hilt. Bright fireworks of light burst behind clenched eyelids. Flesh rips and clothing tears as Jack’s legs collapse and he slides down the rock wall. 

His last thought before the darkness takes him away is whether the signal that they managed to send was enough. If it was strong enough— _long enough_ —for even his little girl to trace. 

And if either of them will still be alive when— _if_ —that rescue comes.   
  
He cradles Mac closer to his chest, fingers buried in tangled, blond, hair and lets his head fall to rest in the crook of Mac’s neck, counting the uneven puffs of trembling air as they wisp warm and slow above the collar of his tee. 

Whichever scenario the Fates decide to let play out, he has everything he’s ever needed right here in the circle of his arms. 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay... Yeah, Sorry for that just, ending. Everything I added to the already written drabble kinda wrote itself and this is where the boys wanted it to end.
> 
> This is complete. I don't have any plans to write a rescue or a follow-up (though if any of you out there would like to pick that up, I'd love to see what you come up with). 
> 
> So while you can decide Mac and Jack's fate however you'd like, I like to think that last minute Hail Mary's are Mathilda Webber's specialty.


End file.
